“A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” (Wall Street Journal), Pierre-Laurent Aimard is widely acclaimed as an exceptional interpreter of the core piano repertoire and a leading figure in the music of our time.

Highlights of the 2026/27 season include Aimard’s residency as Artist in Focus at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, opening with the Dutch premieres of Thomas Lacote’s Cahier de Filigranes and George Benjamin’s Divisions for four hands – a work he has performed with the composer in Berlin, London and New York, and will also present in Munich, Washington, D.C., and Montreal. The Amsterdam residency also brings Aimard together with longstanding collaborator Thomas Zehetmair and Ensemble Musikfabrik.

With orchestra, Aimard appears as soloist with Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Belgian National Orchestra. He returns to leading German orchestras including the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, and performs Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie with the Orchestra of Deutsche Oper Berlin and the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt. Chamber orchestra engagements include Kammerorchester Basel, Kammerakademie Potsdam and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

The season is also marked by two major releases under Aimard’s new partnership with Alpha Classics. The first, Schönberg: Piano Works, is released in autumn 2026 and accompanied by supporting events in Vienna and Los Angeles. The second, Beethoven The Avant-Gardist, is released on the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death (26 March 2027). A deeply personal tribute, the album pairs Beethoven’s solo works with music by 20th- and 21st-century composers, underscoring his radical imagination and enduring influence. The release is accompanied by an extensive recital tour, with appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, the Palau de la Música Catalana, Società del Quartetto di Milano, and Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional de Música.

Throughout his career, Aimard has worked closely with many of the foremost composers of our time and, this season, continues to celebrate the centenary of his longtime collaborator György Kurtág with performances in Paris and a three-concert takeover at London’s Wigmore Hall. Other leading composers with whom he has collaborated include George Benjamin, Helmut Lachenmann, Elliott Carter, Harrison Birtwistle, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Marco Stroppa, György Ligeti and Olivier Messiaen.

In 2025, Aimard released Kurtág: Játékok. The latest in a series of critically acclaimed collaborations with Pentatone, the recording was awarded five stars by BBC Music Magazine. Earlier releases for the label include Schubert: Ländler (2024), the complete Bartók Piano Concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (2023), and Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Eroica Variations (2021).

The recipient of numerous awards, Aimard was honoured with the prestigious International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2017 in recognition of a life devoted to the service of music, and with the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark’s most prestigious music award, in 2022. A member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, he has held professorships at Hochschule Köln and was previously Associate Professor at the Collège de France in Paris. In spring 2020, he relaunched Explore the Score, a major online resource developed in collaboration with Klavier-Festival Ruhr and centred on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music.